Paraguay is one of the largest producers and exporters of soybeans in the world, but the soy industry in the country is largely dominated by Brazilian entrepreneurs. Campesino (peasant) communities in Eastern Paraguay have fought this “Brazilian” soy expansion for reasons that include encroachment into their territories, exposure to agrochemicals, and the difficulty of integrating an industry that requires substantial financial and technological inputs. This article, by contrast, reports on emerging alliances between Old Colonist Mennonites and campesino and indigenous smallholders for the sustained production of export soy within and near a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve in Eastern Paraguay. Based on interviews and field observations, I find a diverse group of small- and medium-scale farmers growing export soy and, in doing so, downscaling the Brazilian—broad-scale—model that is prevalent for soy cultivation in Eastern Paraguay. The article focuses on Mennonite soybean farming at small and medium scales, and Mennonite strategies to increase soy production by investing in campesino soy cultivation at small scales. The article illustrates how these emerging alliances provide Mennonites and traditional smallholders with viable commercial livelihoods that have the potential of being environmentally sound. I question, however, the long-term feasibility of these alliances in the study area in light of growing inter-ethnic conflicts and violence towards Mennonites in Paraguay.

This paper considers the intersection of poverty and voting behavior in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a city that possesses some of the highest rates of concentrated poverty in the United States. To do this, “polygon intersection” is employed which allows taking data that is measured in US Census tract boundaries and fitting them within Philadelphia precinct boundaries. Findings convey that although higher income precincts possess high voter turnout overall, there are several precincts with high poverty rates that possess higher than average voter turnout. The study also finds, however, that areas with the highest concentrated poverty (north and central Philadelphia) has suffered from a lack of voter turnout which may be attributable to the city’s slow inclusion of new immigrant population.

Despite more than a century of research, the formation of broad summit “flats” in Pennsylvania’s Appalachian Highlands continue to challenge geomorphologists. Such landscapes have been described as: (1) peneplains and erosion surfaces, (2) equilibrium landscapes, and (3) cryoplanation terraces. This study evaluates these hypotheses using Digital Elevation Models of Big Flat, a “flat” summit landscape along the crest of South Mountain in south-central Pennsylvania. When combined with other datasets in a GIS, these data indicate that the pattern and form of principal flats are largely controlled by the lithology and structure of southwestward-plunging anticlines and synclines that form South Mountain. Cross sections suggest that these upland flats are developed on exposed limbs of breached folds. Thus, the pattern of flats on this part of South Mountain can be predicted based on underlying lithology and structure, supporting an equilibrium argument.

REFLECTIONS ON CHALLENGES FACING LIBERIAN RESEARCH

(p. 62-68)

D. Elwood Dunn

Department of Political Science

University of the South

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited version of a keynote address delivered at the 50th